(photo via @tristamateer on instagram)

Valentine’s day is just around the corner and it’s really bumming me out. It’s weird because I’ve never really cared about Valentine’s Day much. I never disliked it! We all know it’s a money holiday but I still thought it was a sweet day for couples like an anniversary and I liked it. If I was single, whatever, I’ve spent 24 Valentine’s Days single and I never died. If I was with someone it meant a gift and maybe dinner out or a movie night in bed or something. It’s never been anything super special and I think it’s only hitting me harder this year because I miss my ex boyfriend. I don’t even like calling him that, it really sucks. At this point we’ve been separated longer than we were even together and you would think it wouldn’t be so hard still but it is.

I’ve never been a relationship person, I’ve only been in a few and I never really liked them. They were OK and I wasn’t unhappy but I didn’t really get the point. Marriage especially seemed ridiculous and totally pointless. I always loved the idea of having the party, though. I even made plans with a friend of mine to get married when we were older so I could have the giant Wizard of Oz themed wedding of my dreams but there was no romance involved, it was just a fun party idea. For awhile there I even dabbled with identifying somewhere on the aromantic spectrum because I really didn’t think relationships and romance were for me. And that was OK! I wasn’t sad or lonely and I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. Then, I met my ex boyfriend and there was an immediate shift. I remember thinking during our very first conversation, among a lot of other things, that this person was going to be important. I was sure of it. I looked for him in the important people section of my astrology birthday book and there he was listed on my page, February 4th. I knew it. I remember before we started dating that we would. He never asked me but he referred to me as his girlfriend publicly and when I asked him about it he thought it was implied and was worried he had misread the situation and my feelings but he hadn’t. In my mind we had already been dating. Now we were, and I knew it. Almost immediately after I met him I felt something. I was just SURE that this was my person. He would be my husband, the one I never thought I wanted. Period. I knew it and suddenly those things meant something to me that they hadn’t before. I thought about a real wedding and how I didn’t actually want a giant party or a Wizard of Oz theme like I had dreamed of when it wasn’t important or real. I knew pretty quickly that what I wanted for us was a cheesy Vegas wedding (because he loves Vegas and I love cheese) at a tiny chapel officiated by Elvis with nobody else but us, Elvis, and a chapel witness. I would wear a pretty white dress and he would wear an ugly suit that matched whatever Hawaiian shirt he was wearing underneath. We would leave as a married couple and hop into in an old 90’s white limo with that ugly maroon interior and take it on an 11 hour road trip to Roswell where we would spend our honeymoon staying in cheesy hotels, visiting alien museums, and eating at the UFO McDonald’s and that would be that. I obviously never told him any of that because I also knew that he was going to take a long time to get to that point but he would and it would all happen. I was sure! So when he broke up with me, I was really sad. I was heartbroken, but I wasn’t devastated because I was still sure that that WOULD be our future and that this was just an unforeseen but not permanent period before all of that happened. It’s been almost a year and I still feel that way but I am starting to feel less sure and more delusional. So many people say that when they met the person they eventually spent their lives with that they knew and I thought I knew. I thought that was what I felt and I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life but maybe I was wrong. So this year, Valentine’s Day will be hard. And my birthday will be hard. And June will be hard. And probably the rest of the year, too. There isn’t a positive message I’m trying to convey in this post. I have just never really talked about this before because I thought talking about it might make it real and I didn’t want it to be but it is. Also, I love to overshare my life and thoughts online with all of you so here you go. Now it’s real and you know. Maybe by next Valentine’s Day I will, too.

THIS IS A POST FROM MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @PAINTHRILLERS POSTED ORIGINALLY ON WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 12TH, 2020.